The most important and easiest New Year's resolution to keep in 2014 (Opinion by Clete Wetli)

My Grandpa, Big Clete, always said, 'If you want to make a difference, the first step is to suit up and show up!'

On New Year’s Eve all across America, the prevailing discussion around every office water cooler or social gathering will likely be centered on various self-improvement schemes commonly known as New Year’s resolutions.

(File photo)

They range from the clichés of smoking cessation or weight reduction to the bucket-list ambitions of book writing or skydiving. In less than a month, most resolutions are long forgotten and many folks are back in the buffet line or buying another pack of cancer sticks.

Maybe, it’s time to adopt a resolution that would make a significant and meaningful difference. In 2014, the citizens of Alabama should consider voting as their most important resolution and, by far, the easiest to keep. Lately, too many elections and ballot initiatives are being decided by a determined minority of registered voters whose views do not necessarily reflect the will of the entire electorate, but they simply show up to the polls on election day and actually mark the ballot.

In Madison County, the most recent ballot initiative was decided with less than 5 percent of registered voters participating. In the recent race for Alabama’s 1st Congressional District, the turnout was embarrassingly low. As we look toward the 2014 statewide elections, many analysts are predicting tepid turnout at best.

Many people are disillusioned with the perennial antics on Goat Hill or the legislative clown-show in Washington and feel that their one small vote won’t make any difference at all. They’ve been sold a bill of goods that castigates government as inviolably inefficient and unwaveringly corrupt. Nothing could be further from the truth. In America where we have a government that is built on the premise of “for the people and by the people”, the system works beautifully if people actually participate.

Of course, there is plenty of room for improvement in the election process itself. We should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder as evidenced by the widespread and various insidious plots that are designed solely to rig elections by excluding specific demographic groups. Gerrymandering should simply be abolished immediately. Election Day should not be on a Tuesday just because it’s some sort of rustic or quaint tradition. Why don’t we have weekend voting?

2014 will be a critical year in our nation’s history as conservatives try to make voting more difficult for many by passing more unnecessary photo I.D. laws and by limiting early voting. They’ve already succeeded in gutting the Voting Rights Act and they should be ashamed of their actions. Unfortunately, this only served to embolden their misguided efforts. Yet, we can stop these disenfranchisement schemes by encouraging people to register early and, more importantly, getting them to the polls.

There will always be a chorus of complaints regarding politics, but the only way to improve things is to become involved. Politics is not a passive spectator sport. We’re too quick to brand things dichotomously as red or blue without looking at the complex reality of issues. Some things are simply a matter of good governance and aren’t necessarily partisan issues. Extreme partisanship has become the excuse du jour for political apathy. Yet, Democrats and Republicans both have to drive to work over the same crumbling roads and bridges. Their kids go to the same schools where teachers are paid ridiculously low salaries. Now, how these problems get fixed is exactly why your vote matters.

So, as you think about New Year’s resolutions, I encourage you to resolve to make a difference this year by getting involved and casting your vote. My Grandpa, Big Clete, always said, “If you want to make a difference, the first step is to suit up and show up!”

Happy New Year and I’ll see ya at the polls in November!

Clete Wetli is head of the Madison County Democratic Party, and volunteer community blogger for AL.com.